Ana Amado. Woman Photographer
03/10/2018.
Architecture Women Photographers in Spain Series. 1/11
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
At the beginning of the series of women photographers with Ana Amado, we will explain a little more the basic contents of the series. All the women photographers were invited to answer the same questions, and all were requested the same number of photographs, 13 or 14. Among them each one had to propose a series formed by three images. The presentation will be made in the next few days in alphabetical order.
Pyramid Cestia in Rome. Image date: 2015. Photograph by © Ana Amado
MAAT, in Lisbon, by the architect Amanda Levete. Date image: 2017. Photograph by © Ana Amado
"Revised architectures", with the Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, in Madrid, of Arniches and Domínguez, and Torroja. Photograph by © Ana Amado
"Hinge". Date image: 2014. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Church in Saint Jacques de la Lande, in Rennes, by Alvaro Siza, inaugurated in February 2018. Image date: 2018. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Church in Saint Jacques de la Lande, in Rennes, by Alvaro Siza, inaugurated in February 2018. Image date: 2018. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Church in Saint Jacques de la Lande, in Rennes, by Alvaro Siza, inaugurated in February 2018. Image date: 2018. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Town of Algallarín, by Carlos Arniches (Córdoba). This image belongs to the "Colonos" project, which I have been carrying out for three years with the architect Andrés Patiño, in which we show a current state of the program of the Spanish colonization of the INC, developed during the Franco regime. We have traveled, up to now 30 villages of the 300 that are, and we are preparing a publication. Date image: 2016. Photograph by Ana © Amado
Mirador da Pedra da Ra (Ribeira, A Coruña), by the architect Carlos Seoane. Date image: 2016. Photograph by © Ana Amado
SOLO space reform process, in Madrid, by Herreros estudio. Date image: 2017. Photograph by © Ana Amado
"Real state: extending Cano Lasso from 350 to 10000m2". The architect and artist Elvira Solana has metaphorically extended this floor designed by the architect Julio Cano Lasso in Madrid. Date image: 2018. Photograph by © Ana Amado
César Carlos senior school of Alejandro de la Sota in Madrid. Date image: 2015. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Auditorium and Census Congress of Selgascano in Plasencia. Date image: 2016. Photograph by © Ana Amado
"We dance in the rain", (Image date: 2017). recently exhibited at the headquarters of AFundación, in a Coruña. The exhibition consists of a set of 54 photographs taken by the photographer and architect Ana Amado, together with the video that captures the process of making them, created by the photojournalist Rober Amado. Photograph by © Ana Amado
Ana Amado is the first woman photographer in this series. I met her work, five years ago, for her collaboration in a spectacular project, "Spanish Dream", images that quickly traveled the world, were awarded and published all over the planet, presenting a compromised vision of the consequences of the bubble real estate. That work already spoke in depth about her personality, her interests and her social commitment.
Her previous and subsequent work, speaks of a trajectory that has put her objective in the image showing a clear influence by the painting and the graphic arts. In many of her works the need to make a narrative is discovered, where people take an important role. Architecture as scenery to talk about places, spaces in which people interact with each other or with space.
Ana Amado is a woman photographer who recognizes the need to photograph powerful places, more than spaces, in most of her images. Even when people are absent in their shots, the intensity of their black and white images is almost unreal beauty. The everyday becomes iconic and her images about iconic make us think that they were always something everyday, timeless.
Her previous and subsequent work, speaks of a trajectory that has put her objective in the image showing a clear influence by the painting and the graphic arts. In many of her works the need to make a narrative is discovered, where people take an important role. Architecture as scenery to talk about places, spaces in which people interact with each other or with space.
Ana Amado is a woman photographer who recognizes the need to photograph powerful places, more than spaces, in most of her images. Even when people are absent in their shots, the intensity of their black and white images is almost unreal beauty. The everyday becomes iconic and her images about iconic make us think that they were always something everyday, timeless.
What led you to the photograph?
I showed a very early interest in the arts. Since she was a child she drew and painted constantly. In adolescence I also discovered that fascinating artifact that is the camera. In any case, my inclination continued to be more graphic and pictorial for a few years, in fact I entered the fine arts in Cuenca, although I would soon abandon it for the architecture cart. I made many photographs during the years of my career. It was a basic instrument for project subjects, above all. But I not only took photos of places and models, but I started experimenting with the camera, analog at the time. It would be later, once I went digital, having finished my degree, which, in a somewhat casual way at first, I began to photograph the first works of fellow architects.
Why architectural photography?
Although I do not only photograph architecture, I began to dedicate myself professionally to photography in that way, as I commented, photographing works of my fellow architects. I suppose that my training as an architect has also influenced me to be "specialized", so to speak, in this field.
A photographer that you consider a reference?
The list would be long if we talk about photography in general. Speaking of photographers who have been referents in my way of looking at architecture, undoubtedly Walker Evans, influenced in turn by Atget. The New Topographics and the later Düsseldorf School drank from the same waters, and they are still key in today's photography. Also the great photographers of the Modern Movement, especially Ezra Stoller, Julius Schulman, Lucien Hervé. Kindel, in Spain. But I consider myself eclectic, and my first influences have come from painting and graphic arts. There are many other current photographers that has to do with the architecture that I admire and follow his work: Aitor Ortiz, Hélène Binet, Nadav Kander, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Iwan Baan, ...
Build photography, ideas, inspiration? What do you prefer to capture spaces or create places?
It depends on what kind of reporting you are doing. I face architecture differently if I'm doing a "descriptive" report, a commission, or I'm carrying out a personal report, in which I can use architecture as a backdrop for things that happen in it. In the first case, I try to build a visual story capable of counting the building, so that you can get an idea of the place without having been in it. In this case, the idea is to capture the space and translate it with the least possible filter, although your point of view is always there.
In the second case, when I develop a personal photographic project, it is very common for architecture to play some role in it. As a creator, I am increasingly interested in the social dimension of architecture. I feel more comfortable photographing the life that happens in the architecture we create and how that life transforms the architecture that contains it. And sometimes, I intervene and stage: for example in a project I did with 2 other fellow architects (Luz Paz and Marta Marcos), "Spanish Dream", we intervened the places that I photographed, recreating domestic scenes in works stopped in construction, and in others that I am developing right now too.
Your first camera? And now?
An analog Canon SLR, I do not remember the model. Now I shoot with 2 full digital Nikon Frame.
Is there a photograph that you would have or would like to make?
The photo of the Stahl House by Julius Schulman ... and many more.
More information
Ana AMADO
Ana Amado (Ferrol, A Coruña) is an architect, photographer and visual artist. Master's Degree in Photography from the Lens School of Visual Arts (Madrid), Master's Degree in Art, Museology and Contemporary Criticism from the USC (Santiago de Compostela), Post-Graduate in Creative Illustration from the EINA School (Barcelona), and architect from the ETSAC of architecture (University of A Coruña).
Multidisciplinary professional in the fields of architecture, photography, artistic direction in film / TV, illustration and comics, curating and exhibition design. She recently worked as an assistant to American photographer Mark Steinmetz in the USA. Currently, she combines her work as a photographer with the teaching of photography for adults and young people in schools of visual arts in Madrid.
Her personal work explores the interconnections between the various artistic manifestations, always seeking the approach of contemporary art to society. In her recent work, photography focuses on social content, where architecture is used as a framework to discuss issues such as the economic crisis or the revaluation of modern architecture in Spain.
Her work has been awarded and exhibited nationally and internationally, in Photo London 2018, the Sony World Photography Awards, PhotoEspaña2017 (Madrid), the Venice Biennale 2016 and 2018, the Royal Academy of Arts (London), Tent Gallery (Edinburgh), the International Festival Eme3 and Picasso Museum (Barcelona), or the International Prize "Obra Abierta 2016" (Plasencia), among others.
Multidisciplinary professional in the fields of architecture, photography, artistic direction in film / TV, illustration and comics, curating and exhibition design. She recently worked as an assistant to American photographer Mark Steinmetz in the USA. Currently, she combines her work as a photographer with the teaching of photography for adults and young people in schools of visual arts in Madrid.
Her personal work explores the interconnections between the various artistic manifestations, always seeking the approach of contemporary art to society. In her recent work, photography focuses on social content, where architecture is used as a framework to discuss issues such as the economic crisis or the revaluation of modern architecture in Spain.
Her work has been awarded and exhibited nationally and internationally, in Photo London 2018, the Sony World Photography Awards, PhotoEspaña2017 (Madrid), the Venice Biennale 2016 and 2018, the Royal Academy of Arts (London), Tent Gallery (Edinburgh), the International Festival Eme3 and Picasso Museum (Barcelona), or the International Prize "Obra Abierta 2016" (Plasencia), among others.
